James Petras

The most striking aspect of the prolonged and deepening world recession/depression is the relative and absolute passivity of the working and middle class in the face of massive job losses, big cuts in wages, health care and pension payments and mounting housing foreclosures. Never in the history of the 20-21st Century has an economic crisis caused so much loss to so many workers, employees, small businesses, farmers and professionals with so little large-scale public protest.

To explore some tentative hypotheses of why there is little organized protest, we need to examine the historical-structural antecedents to the world economic depression. More specifically, we will focus on the social and political organizations and leadership of the working class; the transformation of the structure of labor and its relationship to the state and market. These social changes have to be located in the context of the successful ruling class socio-political struggles from the 1980’s, the destruction of the Communist welfare state and the subsequent uncontested penetration of imperial capital in the former Communist countries. The conversion of Western Social Democratic parties to neo-liberalism, and the subordination of the trade unions to the neo-liberal state are seen as powerful contributing factors in diminishing working class representation and influence.

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Kevin Zeese

Holder Warned that Limited Investigation and Selective Prosecution Would Violate the Law and Further Undermine Credibility of DOJ

Washington, DC: Yesterday, the Disbar Torture Lawyer coalition, consisting of more than 150 NGOs representing over a million members, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling on him to appoint a special prosecutor, independent of the Justice Department, to fully investigate the use of torture, and to prosecute all officials and employees who advocated, ordered and committed acts of torture against people held by the United States. The letter, see below, signed by coalition attorney Kevin Zeese, who is Executive Director of Voters for Peace, carefully analyzed the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), which was signed by President Reagan, to underscore that Mr. Holder has no discretion to ignore its mandates. CAT is written in mandatory language, and it requires the investigation of all acts or torture and the prosecution of all those who conspired to and did commit torture.

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by Najwa Sheikh Ahmed

Gaza, August 11, 2009 (Pal Telegraph)-Another hidden but very painful part of the Palestinian sufferings is the story of families scattered around the world, many of whom have settled in different countries, after they fled in 1948. They have different lives and lost many of their childhood memories.

Childhood memories are the events and experiences lived with our sisters and brothers. They are the special moments in time that one cannot ignore or forget; they are experiences bound by the ties of brotherhood. The memories shared with my brothers and sisters are for us, which as a family we ordinarily would enjoy recalling and reliving. Recollection of the dear memories of our childhood would be possible if we were not separated by such a distance.

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by Stephen Lendman

Israel Shahak's (1933 - 2001) "Jewish History, Jewish Religion" argued that while Islamic fundamentalism is vilified in the West, comparable Jewish extremism is largely ignored. In the book's forward, Edward Said wrote:

"....Shahak's mode of telling the truth has always been rigorous and uncompromising. There is nothing seductive about it, no attempt made to put it 'nicely,' no effort expended on making the truth palatable....For Shahak killing is murder is killing is murder: his manner is to repeat. (He) shows that the obscure, narrowly chauvinist prescriptions against various undesirable Others are to be found in Judaism (as in other monotheistic religions) but he always goes on to show the continuity between those and the way Israel treats Palestinians, Christians and other non-Jews. A devastating portrait of prejudice, hypocrisy and religious intolerance emerges."

Shahak's "Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel" picked up on the theme in explaining its pervasive, destructive influence in Israeli politics, the military and society. He noted that substituting German or Aryan for Jewish and non-Jews for Jews makes it easy to see how a superiority doctrine made an earlier genocide possible and is letting another happen now.

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By Emily Spence

...some receive adequate care while others are completely cast aside as
discarded members of society much in the way that the homeless
Americans, the street people and the tent-city dwellers, are treated today.

Overview:

The heath-care debate is not about care at all. Instead, it's about the amount of profits that government, HMO and pharmaceutical leaders are personally willing to give up. Accordingly, it's clear that many Congressional representatives have no interest in evaluating even a few of the successful models of universal coverage that numerous other countries can provide. Instead, they are, typically, in collusion with big business to stymie any meaningful reforms.

Upon receipt of a B. S. degree in biology, an acquaintance of mine -- let's call her Linda -- decided to spend the summer in Asia working at a small medical clinic that had a staffing shortage. The clinic was near a major river on whose banks were crowded thousands of families living in small densely packed hovels whose heaped together mass stretched as far as the eye could see.

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Allen L Roland

Science will surely remain one-eyed and lacking in depth-perception until it acknowledges the equal validity of subjective, sensory and spiritual experience. And it will continue to record the letter of mere mechanics, and miss the true spirit that brings it all to life, until it comes to recognize the universal urge to unite ~ even within the molecule itself ~ as being the universal attractive force of love:

There is a growing consciousness revolution going on in science ~ a genuine paradigm shift. While mainstream science remains generally materialist and seeing through one eye ~ a growing number of scientists are supporting and developing a paradigm based on the primacy of consciousness. I'm one of them but I'm concentrating on spiritual psychology and the realm of soul consciousness ~ which permeates the unseen sub-atomic world as well as the world of our physical sensory experience.

No one describes this growing scientific impasse more tellingly than Lincoln Barnett, author of The Universe and Dr. Einstein:

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Re-reported by Carolyn Bennett

ARMS to Africa will neither Benefit Africa nor Eliminate Poverty

The only real change and true benefit U.S. foreign policy can make to Africa is to assist and support the United Nations Millennium Goals to eliminate global poverty — especially in Africa because this continent has suffered so deeply for so long under European colonialism and, in contemporary times, under multinational corporate/governmental colonialism that continues a brutal looting far worse than casino-plundered Atlantic cities or Niagara-USA, leaving Africa’s land and peoples bereft, reversing even limited progress eked out in years between wars (cold and hot).

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Joel S. Hirschhorn

As we approach the eighth anniversary of 9/11 consider this paradox. In the post 9-11 years the scientific evidence for disbelieving the official government story has mounted incredibly. And the number of highly respected and credentialed professionals challenging the official story has similarly expanded. Yet, to the considerable disappointment of the international 9/11 truth movement, the objective fact is that there are no widespread, loud demands for a new government-backed 9/11 investigation. The 9/11 truth movement is the epitome of a marginalized movement, one that never goes away despite not achieving truly meaningful results, which in this case means replacing official lies with official truth. What has gone wrong?

Akin to the definition of insanity, the hallmark of entrenched but marginalized movements is that they continue to pursue exactly the same strategy and tactics that have failed to produce solid results. They indulge themselves with self-delusion, defensive thinking and acting as if the world at large must surely and finally wake up, see the light and embrace the Truth. Years and, potentially, decades go by, but this quixotic status quo remains embedded, as if set in intellectual concrete. There is no brain tumor to blame. Nor any mass hypnosis of true believers to prove. There is just monumental disinterest among the dominant culture, political establishment and the broad public that is far more engaged with other issues, problems and movements.

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Douglas Drenkow

The well-organized thugs who are disrupting the grassroots democracy at town hall meetings, to discuss the vital issue of health care reform, have the audacity to compare President Obama with Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators: They say that "Obama care" will produce "death warrants" for seniors and millions of others, by the denial of life-saving care or even by euthanasia.

Isn't that more or less what our private insurance health "care" system has been doing for years -- producing worse health outcomes than for people in most other industrialized nations -- and charging us a pretty penny -- up to twice as much per person as in other countries -- for the "privilege"?

Ration that.

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Stephen Lendman

For eight years, the Bush administration relentlessly targeted Muslim, environmental, and animal rights activists as national security or terrorist threats. Shamefully, Obama continues the same practice.

On May 20, the FBI arrested four New York men, claiming they planned to bomb a Bronx synagogue and community center and shoot down Newburgh, New York-based Air National Guard jets with stinger missiles.

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